


Sun-Kissed By Night

by androgenius



Category: The Arcana (Visual Novel)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, F/M, Gen, Past Violence, Slight spoilers, past trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-27
Updated: 2020-02-27
Packaged: 2021-02-28 04:28:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,328
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22927960
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/androgenius/pseuds/androgenius
Summary: Muriel has a theory: that good things only come to him at night.He's mostly right, just not in the way that he thinks.
Relationships: Apprentice/Muriel (The Arcana), Muriel (The Arcana)/Reader, Muriel (The Arcana)/You
Comments: 2
Kudos: 87





	Sun-Kissed By Night

**Author's Note:**

> This is my fic for the [din zine](https://dinzine.tumblr.com/) with the prompt Muriel + Night. Working as a part of this zine was an absolute pleasure and I'm so grateful that I got to be a part of it!!

He remembers his first happy memory in Vesuvia, the moon hanging low and heavy overhead, as though presiding over their meeting. Asra is like a hummingbird, small and fast, whizzing through even the narrowest of side streets with downright alarming speed and finesse. Compared to him, Muriel is like a boulder, large and cumbersome, and certainly hard to miss. 

(Hard to forget, too, as it turns out.)

Still, the night blankets him in a sense of calm almost as effective as Asra's herbs and pouches. And even without the added benefit of his cave, Muriel knows, no matter what Asra says-- the docks, the beach, the space under the pier-- they're all infinitely better than the hustle and bustle of the Vesuvian streets, where lights-- magical and candlelit-- are around every corner. 

And despite the fact that he met Asra in those very streets, he credits the night instead of the light with finding him a best friend. 

&

The nights are peaceful, calm. It's one reason Muriel enjoys his hut in the woods-- no matter the time of day, the illusion of darkness remains, cloaking reality for him.

Then again, maybe it's the other way around. He's always wondered. Has it been more about protecting, shielding others from him? He'd always assumed it to be a selfish thing until now. Is it a cage he's built for himself in the woods, a cage to keep-- if not him inside, then-- others out?

The dawn seems to carry Asra to his door with the news, Muriel opening it to him before he even has the chance to knock.

"I'm leaving," he says.

"Mm." Muriel scowls, but says nothing until the realization strikes him that there is one question that he really ought to ask, that's important. "How long?"

If Asra is leaving for good, he has no reason to stay in Vesuvia, not even in the outskirts. 

"A while." 

"You'll be back?"

"That's kind of the idea. I doubt I'd make it if I stayed. You know, the plague..." There's a beat as worry takes hold of Asra's features. "You really shouldn't stay, either, even out here--"

Muriel lets out a noncommittal grunt. It barely even serves as an acknowledgment, all things considered, but he prefers it that way all the same.

It's been his time to go for a long time coming, after all. He could have easily died in the arena time and time again, only for Asra to stitch him back together from the brink of death. He could have starved to death beneath the pier or died alongside his family.

If the plague wants to take him, fine. Luck has helped him evade death's grasp far too many times already for him to start sidestepping it now. 

"What about--" He clears his throat in lieu of offering a name or worse.

Still, Asra doesn't look satisfied. If anything, he looks more depressed than he did before.

"Well," he starts, heaving a great sigh. "At least we've moved on from _Dead Weight_."

If he is meant to acknowledge the shift from barely qualifying as tolerant to simply not saying anything, Muriel doesn't bother. He's never been one much for talking, let alone waxing poetic about his feelings and the finer intricacies about the shifts therein. 

Especially since there hasn't been one. He's simply learned that, when Asra is already depressed, it's kinder to say nothing at all if he has nothing nice to say.

"Not coming," Asra finally answers, Muriel moving to stand. This is the sort of situation that warrants tea, he knows. Asra even left some leaves behind the last time he tried to teach Muriel, and surely, surely it can't be as hard as he's making it out to be in his own head.

Without question, Asra takes the kettle from his hand to set over the fire. 

"It's--" he sighs, turning his attention to leaves whose location would have been a complete mystery to Muriel, as though Asra's hands _need_ something with which to busy themselves now that he's started talking about the... dead weight.

"-- the plague," he finishes, shaking his head. "Something about doing the right thing by staying and helping people. I mean, I mentioned the dying part, too, but-- that part didn't matter. Of course, neither did the fact that I would be hurt, but--"

Another frustrated sigh slips past his lips as he painstakingly measures out leaves to add into the kettle.

"We fought," he finally says, shrugging faintly. "So, anyway, the point is that I'm leaving, alone, and I'll eventually come home to a corpse, but it's fine. It's fine."

Faust peeks his head out from under Asra's collar. _Liar_ , he tells him, Muriel unable to help but agree. 

" _Dead Weight_ was too nice," he concludes instead, Asra letting out a long-suffering sigh.

Asra brings the kettle over to the table just as Muriel glances out the window to catch the last orange-yellow rays of the morning dissipate to give way to the day, already longing for the darkness of night to return to him.

&

It's night when Asra returns home. Day when he learns of the corpse that awaited him. He cries until the last of the sunlight sinks below the horizon and Muriel adds to his mental tally of resentment, starting to wonder if there isn't some way to shoot the sun out of the sky for once and for all.

He doesn't see Asra again for a while after that, something he attributes wholly to The Problem, to you, Muriel left uncertain as to whether he's even still in Vesuvia-- at least until he shows up, half-crazed, at Muriel's doorstep. 

He pounds twice on the door before he realizes that Muriel is outside with him, feeding his chickens. 

"I-- found a way," he gasps with a drop to his knees, already shaking his head as though he already anticipates his response long before Muriel has even thought to open his mouth. 

"It's-- dark magic, but. I-- I can't. And I know you don't approve, but-- all I have is a _skull_ , Muriel, what am I supposed to--"

Asra's fingers dig into the dirt beneath him to the first knuckle as his voice cracks, and Muriel has half the mind to slap him.

"It's not really your business," he growls, Asra's fingers burrowing deeper.

"Not my-- _of course_ it's my business! If I had stayed, if I had been more persuasive-- I can't just leave it at this. I have to do something."

"Then leave me out of it," he hears himself say.

A glance up at the few crown-shy trees that are part of the thick blanket above him tells him all he needs to know.

Of course it's the middle of the day.

&

In his memories, he can still feel the sweltering heat of the arena, the full brunt of the sun bearing down on his sweat-slicked back.

It's the sort of thing you don't forget. Like the way the leather straps of his restraints dug into marred skin, scarred several times over, the way his collar would feel like a noose around his neck whenever he got angry, or the paltry amount his loincloth covered up until he stopped caring about being exposed at all. 

Within the confines of the arena, he hates magicians the most. Their attacks are harder to dodge than physical ones, and, most of the time, they hurt a good bit more, too. 

Of course, it helps that he has Asra waiting for him on the other side. If he didn't, Muriel is half-convinced that he'd develop a full-blown vendetta against magicians as a whole. 

Instead, it seems to be daylight that his hatred latches onto, the bodies he leaves in his wake more starkly obvious, their blood glistening in the light and the blistering heat of the midday sun so frequently doing its best to exacerbate already painful welts and bruises. 

Like pouring salt on an open, festering wound. 

It fucking burns. 

Asra's magic washes over him like a salve, and in the nighttime, he is renewed, the cloak of darkness sufficient enough to make him feel almost human again. 

Even after his tenure as the scourge comes to a close, his resentment is little abated. He robes himself in hoods and cloaks, spells and magic to keep those around him from recognizing him for the monster he is in the light of day, but-- it's not enough. 

&

Asra thinks he's insane when he tells him about his theory. But then, it's night when Lucio is murdered, and night when Muriel learns of it.

He decides not to look too closely when-- also at night-- Asra gets his Problem back, too. 

At least he's not dating that infernal doctor anymore, even if he's taken on a corpse for an apprentice. 

The Problem-- apprentice is far too great a promotion from your former label-- sticks around from then on, unfortunately. Asra stays at the magic shop, not that Muriel should have been surprised. 

At least he can take solace in the fact that he's always been impossible to keep rooted to one place, and that his moving out of the hut wasn't personal. Still. It's a conveniently easy thing to blame on The Problem. 

Asra still visits Muriel regularly, and always is considerate enough to come alone and leave The Pest behind. 

&

Three years pass in relative peace before Lucio comes back, a miserable specter haunting, well-- wherever he damn well pleases, the usual that can be expected from their sad excuse of a count. 

Of course, that's also when _you_ show up at his doorstep, as though the forest is intent on punishing him, bringing The Pest straight to him.

It's... annoying, your loss of memory. Certainly, he can't be helping things along with his protective spells, but still. You show up at his hut when the sun is shining brilliantly overhead, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed without a care in the world, and Muriel wishes he were surprised. 

You don't remember that he hates you. It almost seems too much to ask that you remember him at all-- not that he wants you to, he's simply tired of having to repeat himself every time he tells you to leave him alone.

Still, it's not enough. You're as relentless as the sunshine, day after day, as though you're determined to worm your way into his heart somehow, sooner or later.

You won't. You _can't_. 

But then Lucio steals your body on the night of the masquerade, and he wonders if he wasn't wrong all along.

"We'll set this right, get the body back," Asra tells him, and Muriel is left to wonder when your well-being became something he cares about.

It's the little things, he supposes. The way you hold his chicks with such care-- and how much they seem to adore you. The way your cooking reminds him of Asra's and of home-- but even better, somehow. The way you seem to blush with your whole body, exactly the same way as you laugh. 

And, well, he wouldn't have let you come over as regularly as he did if he hadn't grown to at least tolerate you, as blindingly radiant as you are, your sunshine the complete antithesis to his night and his darkness. 

(Then again, even a night sky has stars to litter it with light.)

Maybe he is in love with you. It would certainly fit the trend his life has followed thus far-- only ever experiencing the world through a bleak, cloudy fishbowl, all while watching it become cloudier with every time something more is taken away from him. 

His home. His family. His freedom. His best friend-- first, physically, then mentally. His safety and privacy. 

He wonders when he'll stop losing the things that matter most to him when Asra's voice filters into his mind like sand, determined to flood the cracks of his psyche until he might never rid himself of it, even when he bothers looking at the damage waiting to be fixed behind the cobwebs, someday.

_For all the things you've lost, you've found just as many._

Asra always was a hypocritical nag, but the thought is one tinged in affection. 

He's right, after all-- mostly, anyway. 

He's made a home for himself. He has his freedom again. Asra is back to his normal-- albeit occasionally absentee-- behavior. He even... has you now-- his own found family, even if it's small. You, Inanna, the chicks... and Asra as the uncle that periodically visits.

All he has to do is get your body back, and if that means getting Lucio his due, too, all the better.

The only problem is... getting there. 

Asra invites him into his Gate to reunite the two of you-- you have a journey to go on, after all-- and the relief he feels at seeing you once more is palpable enough to make him smile openly. 

"You realize what this means, right?" Asra asks, gesturing back at the doorway. "Your theory doesn't add up anymore."

Muriel supposes he has a point there, too, not that the grunt he offers in response would tell anyone but Asra as much.

Now, too, has the night has taken from him and sought to give nothing back-- yet.

"We'll see," he mutters, and sets off to find the Arcana by your side. 

&

Chains are broken, morbid dinner parties prevented, and, your body restored, you surprise him with a kiss by the time dawn breaks and bathes the two of you in light.

In a way, he thinks, he was right-- just not the way he thought. After all, you shine brighter than any star in the night sky, bringing warmth and light with you wherever you go. Even the darkness feels sun-kissed with you by his side, and Muriel finds that there isn't a single hour of the day he could possibly dread-- not anymore, not with you in his arms.

**Author's Note:**

> Come talk to me about Muriel on [twitter](https://twitter.com/androugenius)!


End file.
